Tullett Prebon names Phizackerley as chief executive officer

LONDON (Reuters) - British interdealer broker Tullett Prebon said on Thursday it had appointed former Nomura and Lehman Brothers executive John Phizackerley as chief executive.

The company, whose staff match buyers and sellers of currencies, bonds and other tradeable instruments, said last month that Terry Smith was stepping down from the top role to focus on Fundsmith, the asset management firm he founded in 2010.

Phizackerley will take over on Sept. 1, Tullett said in a statement.

Phizackerley, who prefers to be called "Phiz", started out as a mining engineer with Anglo American. He later became an research analyst, working for more than 20 years at Lehman Brothers.

After Lehman's collapse in 2008, he joined Nomura, eventually becoming CEO for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. He left the Japanese bank in 2013.

Having worked through Lehman's failure and its subsequent integration with Nomura, Phizackerley has shown he can pull both a business and people through massive upheaval, a Tullett spokesman said.

That could prove crucial for Tullett, which like rivals ICAP, GFI Group, BGC Partners and Tradition, faces fundamental change as new regulation forces investment banks to cut back on risky trading activities.

Their troubles have been deepened by years of very low interest rates, which has dampened market volatility and reduced revenue from trading products such as interest rate swaps.

ICAP CEO Michael Spencer said on Tuesday called it "as bad a drought as I've experienced in my entire career" and confirmed the broker was cutting staff.

Tullett declined to say what Phizackerley's appointment would mean for the company's strategy because it is due to report interim results on July 29.

Tullett said Smith would work as a consultant for the firm over the next two years, advising the chairman and the board. The 61-year-old, known for his outspoken nature and fierce rivalry, particularly with ICAP's Spencer, will be paid 250,000 pounds per year for his services, it added.

(Reporting by Clare Hutchison; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)